DePinho was in San Antonio as part of MD Anderson's “A Conversation With a Living Legend” fundraiser, which featured long-time journalists Cokie Roberts and Sam Donaldson. Joining them in a wide-ranging discussion for donors who helped raise approximately $200,000 for the center was Tom Johnson, retired CEO of CNN News Group.

The plain-spoken DePinho, who talks of “kicking cancer's butt,” said new technologies are the key to “putting cancer in the history books.”

“The opportunity has never been greater to truly end this dreaded disease,” he said during a press conference prior to the event. “This was not conceivable five, 10 years ago.”

While DePinho said there were positive aspects of the Affordable Care Act, such as the 47 million Americans it will cover, he warned that it will not solve the healthcare crisis.

“We have the Baby Boomers who'll start getting Alzheimer's, cancers and other age-related diseases, so the answer isn't greater efficiencies,” he explained. “It's funding the science needed to understand those diseases so that we can prevent them in the first place and cure them if they do occur.”

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Both Roberts and Donaldson said during the same press conference that they expect most of the law to be spared from those who would repeal it or challenge it in the courts.

“My guess is, the Supreme Court will decide the law is constitutional, and I think the vote will be 6-3 in favor,” said Donaldson. “If I'm wrong, we go back to Square One.”

DePinho was still basking in Monday's announcement of the establishment of a center at MD Anderson to accelerate the development of new cancer drugs. He compared how the new Institute for Applied Cancer Science will operate to an automobile manufacturing plant.

“The way [cancer research] is done today is like a factory that makes windshields and then ships them off to another factory where they may, or may not, be installed in a car body,” he said. “We are going to take the happenstance out of the process of developing new cancer drugs.”

He said that while MD Anderson will coordinate research efforts, such as identifying promising therapies and running clinical trials, work will not be limited to the Houston campus.

“We have extensive interactions with institutions around the world,” he said. “And as such, we have the responsibility to work with investigators at many institutions, including those here in San Antonio where, for example, there is a very good breast cancer program that we interact with extensively.”